Showing posts with label welfare reform. Show all posts
Showing posts with label welfare reform. Show all posts
Thursday, September 6, 2012
MORNING BELL: Clinton Is Wrong on Welfare Reform
Last night, in his nationally televised speech, former President Bill Clinton said the charge that President Obama has gutted welfare reform was “a real doozy.”
Clinton, who vetoed welfare reform twice before signing the welfare reform law in 1996, echoed the Obama Administration and media “fact checkers,” who have sworn that Obama’s Health and Human Services Department (HHS) is actually trying to strengthen the work requirements of the law by doing away with them.
The fact is that the Administration has gutted welfare reform, and Heritage has detailed reports on exactly how—and what the consequences will be. Heritage expert Robert Rector, who helped write the 1996 law, answered Clinton this morning in no uncertain terms:
CONTINUED: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/09/06/morning-bell-clinton-is-wrong-on-welfare-reform/?roi=echo3-13042956621-9621028-fa262b7baf9dbf8dba31781422032340&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
Friday, July 13, 2012
OBAMA STRIPS THE LAW WITH A WAVE OF HIS HAND--AGAIN!
Obama’s Imperial Presidency Guts Welfare Reform
By Heritage Foundation
The imperial Presidency has overturned Congress and the law again. Not content to stop at rewriting immigration policy, education policy and energy policy, yesterday, President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare reform law of 1996. The new policy guts the federal work requirements that were the foundation of the Clinton-era reform.
While this real news occurred yesterday, most of the media remained fixated on political ads and speeches, letting a major and unilateral shift in America’s welfare system go nearly unreported.
Welfare reform replaced the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children with a new program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The Heritage Foundation played a pivotal role in building bipartisan consensus for the reform and providing many of the recommendations that became part of the law. The whole point was that able-bodied adults should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving welfare aid.--NOT ANYMORE!
This reform was very successful. TANF became the only welfare program (out of more than 70) that promoted greater self-reliance. It moved 2.8 million families off the welfare rolls and into jobs so that they were providing for themselves. Child poverty fell, and single-parent employment rose. Recipients were required to perform at least 20–30 hours per week of work or job preparation activities in exchange for the cash benefit.
Now, Obama’s HHS is claiming that it can waive those work requirements that are at the heart of the law, and without Congress’s consent.
CONTINUED: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/07/13/morning-bell-obamas-imperial-presidency-guts-welfare-reform/?roi=echo3-12545825025-9134079-87d2ebdcd4756a068c7587d44ed415a5&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
By Heritage Foundation
The imperial Presidency has overturned Congress and the law again. Not content to stop at rewriting immigration policy, education policy and energy policy, yesterday, President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare reform law of 1996. The new policy guts the federal work requirements that were the foundation of the Clinton-era reform.
While this real news occurred yesterday, most of the media remained fixated on political ads and speeches, letting a major and unilateral shift in America’s welfare system go nearly unreported.
Welfare reform replaced the old Aid to Families with Dependent Children with a new program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The Heritage Foundation played a pivotal role in building bipartisan consensus for the reform and providing many of the recommendations that became part of the law. The whole point was that able-bodied adults should be required to work or prepare for work as a condition of receiving welfare aid.--NOT ANYMORE!
This reform was very successful. TANF became the only welfare program (out of more than 70) that promoted greater self-reliance. It moved 2.8 million families off the welfare rolls and into jobs so that they were providing for themselves. Child poverty fell, and single-parent employment rose. Recipients were required to perform at least 20–30 hours per week of work or job preparation activities in exchange for the cash benefit.
Now, Obama’s HHS is claiming that it can waive those work requirements that are at the heart of the law, and without Congress’s consent.
CONTINUED: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/07/13/morning-bell-obamas-imperial-presidency-guts-welfare-reform/?roi=echo3-12545825025-9134079-87d2ebdcd4756a068c7587d44ed415a5&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell
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